This invention relates generally to transaction card holders and more particularly to a card holder for holding multiple transaction cards, such as gift cards, within an assembly that allows the cards to be scanned by a card reader without detachment from the holder.
Transaction cards, stored value cards, or gift cards, as they are commonly called, based upon their intended use, have become popular gifts. Gift cards typically comprise a stored value card whereby a certain cash equivalent value is encoded upon a magnetic strip applied to the surface of the card. This stored value may be determined by the vendor prior to packaging and display for sale or may be selected at the point of sale by the purchaser and loaded by the cashier using a magnetic card reader/writer. As an alternative to a magnetic strip, a transaction card may use a bar code to link the card to an account by which the associated value is stored in a computer database. While popular, gift cards are typically provided with a generic and impersonal design, typically identifying the associated merchant for which the card may be used to purchase merchandise, and therefore are not personalized in view of the intended recipient.
Gift cards are often presented for sale on display racks in stores, each card or packet of cards being hung upon a display stand peg. A given area of a store will only support a certain number and size of display stands, given store traffic and other considerations, which makes allocation of display space an important marketing decision that may require selecting only certain high selling cards for display. Display of other items in the same store area will typically reduce the substantially finite space available for displaying gift cards and gift card packets. What is needed is a device for displaying multiple cards in an integrated package that also allows for scanning of each card without detachment from the package.